Part 1, Monday, Oct. 10 My daughter Lisa, whom I often use as a sounding board, was outraged, to put it mildly, over Trump’s latest denigration of women. This time, she said in an exchange of e-mails, ‘Trump has crossed so far over the line that,he’s “toast.” No possibility of recovering from this. Of course she was referring to the vulgarities and outright hostility towards women that poured out of Trump’s own mouth in tapes released Friday. From Trump’s distorted perspective, it was nothing more than “locker room” talk. Many, however, agreed with Senator Tim Kaine’s assessment that “The tape raises an awful lot of questions … a pattern of assaultive behavior, not just words.” Actually, when Trump averred that as a celebrity he could “move-in” on just about any “hot chick” and “grab her pu–y,” he was advocating sexual assault. No minor locker-room banter, he was talking about committing a felonious act. At the least, he was vulgarly objectifying women. Think about your mother, sisters, daughters, and wife–well wives, three of them...

Hillary should be forthright and center stage on the issue of free trade and job losses. In our last blog we suggested that this was an enormous challenge, but one that she must meet. The challenge is compounded by the complexity of the economics involved–I suggested that it would take two graduate seminars to comprehend–and I promised a shortened statement of the problems and offer solutions. The couple of minutes usually allowed for presentations in the debates require this method of dealing with the issue. She must emphasize her recognition of the seriousness of the problem upfront and she can elaborate in rebuttals and follow-up questions. And on the stump she can focus on its individual parts: Here’s how she can deal with the issue successfully: The free trade agreements that started under Bill, and continued under successive administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have increased exports, lowered costs to consumers, created many jobs BUT it has created job losses a well and we MUST find solutions for those workers affected....

Donald Trump has now been crowned King of the Republican Party. It’s semi-official now. Hillary’s strategy of minority and women should net her most of the large population states. But what about the states with low minority citizenship? Those mostly went for Bernie and Donald. Well, you first have to differentiate between those that are Trump strongholds according to the polls–despite Trump’s high “unfavorables.” The others are considered borderline states, i.e., Trump may be favored, but under the right circumstances they are winnable for Hillary, even in the face of her own very high “unfavorable” ratings–again according to the latest polls. On paper Hillary has a tough challenge to win any of those borderline states. Her minority base just isn’t there. And face it, among blue-collar white male voters, and their issues with her gender, combined with Tump’s already demonstrated appeal with to them, Hillary Clinton is not going to gain much traction. What potential inroads she does have, will not work without a new zinger issue that hits home. And “home” to blue...

Hillary won big in Mississippi, which continued her sweep of the southern states. This only reinforced what we already knew–that in states with large numbers of African-American voters on the Democratic rolls, she has it all over Bernie. Not that Bernie isn’t sympathetic to the problems facing African-Americans. It’s just that the Clintons, Hillary and Bill, have a long and steady history of working for that demographic’s issues, while Sanders, even with a civil rights foray during his youth, has not given the priority to Black issues. This can be explained away, or at least attempted to, because most of Sanders’ political life has been spent serving the interests of lily-white Vermont. His supporters will say that his focus on class conflict, and the plight of labor, automatically includes the interests of Black workers. For many, I suspect, this kind of explanation will resonate about as much as Hillary’s support for the Import-Export Bank as a means to bring jobs to Michigan did. Which is to say, not very much at all,...

New Hampshire and its open primary elections are now behind us. As readers of our posts will recall, New Hampshire’s unusual primary system allowed Independents to choose which primary they wanted to vote in right up to the final moments. Once I saw the early exit poll figures that showed 35% of independents voted Republican and a whopping 47% voting Democratic, it became clear that the non-party regulars, whom polls indicated overwhelmingly supported Trump and Sanders, had voted–the degree to which was in doubt right up to the final polls. Final results, a few hours later, confirmed this as both Trump and Sanders won big in New Hampshire. There was almost no momentum carryover from the Iowa caucuses. Rubio’s surge fell flat in New Hampshire, possibly affected by his flubs in the final Republican debate. No such excuse was found on the Democratic side. Sanders’ young and disaffected supporters voted, and he soundly trounced Hillary in his neighboring state. Both Sanders and Trump carried almost every demographic cohort. The...